


Tenderness

by GillianInOz



Series: An Honourable Endeavour [3]
Category: Endeavour
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:37:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillianInOz/pseuds/GillianInOz
Summary: Morse still needs reassurance - and Thursday is starting to understand he’s in way over his head.





	Tenderness

“Any plans for the weekend, Morse?”

“Oh, a concert on Saturday night.” Morse glanced up from his crossword and caught the significant look directed at him. “What?”

“You taking someone?”

Morse looked back down at his puzzle. “No. I could only afford one ticket.”

Thursday blew out an exasperated breath. “I can sub you a few quid if you want to get a second ticket, Morse. Find someone to take with you. A date?”

“No thanks,” Morse said absently. 

“Surely there’s somebody you have your eye on. What about that pretty nurse who lived down the hall from you?”

“Monica,” Morse supplied. “She patched me up when I fell through the floor that time.”

“You told me you were all right,” Thursday frowned.

“I was all right. It was just that scrape on my back, remember? You saw it a few times until it healed.”

Thursday puffed on his pipe. “Nasty,” he recalled. “Still, having a pretty girl play Florence Nightingale must have been nice.”

“I was too busy trying not to swear when she cleaned it up to notice,” Morse said. “Oh, it’s an anagram,” he said triumphantly, scribbling a few letters on the border of the newspaper.

“Maybe if you put those puzzles down for a few minutes,” Thursday said sourly. “You might have time for a social life.”

Morse laid his pencil down and frowned at his governor. “What is this? Why are you suddenly worried about my social life?”

“I’m worried about you. It’s my job to worry about you, remember?”

“At work,” Morse said reasonably. “I don’t comment on your social life.”

“I’m married, I don’t have one,” Thursday quipped. “I don’t need one. I go home to my family every night, and I’m surrounded by as much life as one man can take.” He puffed on his pipe, fixing his eyes on Morse. “I want that for you. I don’t like to think about you alone.”

“I like being alone.” Morse shrugged. “I’m used to it. It helps me think.”

“Brood more like. A man should be married. Have a family or not, but a man should have a wife.”

“The world’s not the same as it was when you were younger. People don’t think the same way. Maybe once…” Morse looked back down at his crossword, but Thursday doubted he was reading any of the clues. “Maybe once I thought that was for me. But I’m older now. Too set in my ways.”

“Hark at Methuselah.”

“I am,” Morse insisted. “I have my work to challenge my mind, my music to soothe my soul, and you…”

“And me?” Thursday said. “That’s what worries me.”

“What’s that mean?” Morse’s hands crumpled the edge of his newspaper for a moment, but almost at once he relaxed them, deliberately Thursday thought. The first time he’d thought their pairing was being threatened he’d about had a panic attack, but they’d both come a long way since then. Thursday took it as a good sign that Morse trusted him, but still this niggling worry was playing at his mind.

Thursday looked around the busy pub and lowered his voice. “Our pairing, Morse. It can’t be a substitute for a real relationship.”

“Our pairing isn’t real?” Morse cocked a brow.

“You know what I mean. I blame myself,” Thursday said moodily. “A governor has no right being too intimate with his bagman, not emotionally like.”

Morse folded the paper and laid it aside, looking interested. “Intimate,” he repeated thoughtfully. “I think you’re going to have to explain that. Since just a few hours ago we were in the front seat of your car, and I distinctly remember my mouth getting very intimate with your c…”

“All right, all right,” Thursday said repressively, looking around the pub hastily. “I see you’re not in the mood for a rational discussion.”

“No, I’m intrigued now,” Morse said, wide eyes gazing at him with an innocent expression. “How exactly does our ‘intimacy’ differ from any other pairing? Do tell?”

“You can’t half get hoity toity when it suits you,” Thursday said testily. “May I remind you exactly who is the boss in this pairing?”

Morse smirked. “Do tell, sir,” he said, emphasising the last word.

Thursday chomped down on the stem of his pipe. “In a good pairing sex should be a way to release the tension,” Thursday said, aware he was sounding like a lecturer at Hendon. “On both sides. For a senior to calm down a game young junior, and to get a lot of the tension out of his own mood before leaving the job behind. It’s a real bond in a pairing, I’m not saying it isn’t. And it should be a pleasant one.”

“Mutually beneficial I believe the handbook said,” Morse supplied helpfully.

“All right, all right, clever clogs,” Thursday grumbled. “You know what I’m trying to say. Maybe I strayed into being a bit too… touchy feely. I should have kept our encounters a bit more perfunctory.”

“Perfunctory,” Morse repeated thoughtfully. “I seem to remember the first time fit that description well enough. If ‘drop your draws and bend over the desk’ isn’t perfunctory, I’m not sure what is.”

“Exactly,” Thursday persisted, refusing to respond to the wicked light in Morse’s eyes. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. I think, maybe, later on, I started to get too… Maybe I should have been a bit, you know. Less gentle with you.”

“Slapped me around a bit you mean?” Morse suggested helpfully. 

“If you’re not going to take me seriously,” Thursday said, tapping out his pipe in the ashtray and making to leave.

“No, no, no,” Morse said, putting his hand on his governor’s wrist. “I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t tease. I know you mean well.”

“I’m worried about you, Morse,” Thursday said. “I don’t want you to grow old alone. I don’t want you to mistake what we have for…”

“Love?” Morse grimaced ruefully. “It’s all right, sir. I know what a pairing is, and what it means. At no point does it resemble a romance. Besides,” he shrugged. “I’m not the kind of person people fall in love with, I figured that out a long time ago.”

Thursday stared at him in dismay. “That’s not what I meant! Of course you’re… of course I… care about you.” He closed his eyes wearily. “I’ve made a mess of this.”

Morse’s hand curved around his leg under the table, just that lean warmth lightly gripping him above the knee. “Sir,” he said softly. “Even if I’d turned down your offer to pair, stayed in Oxford or not. I’d still feel the same way about a permanent relationship. It’s not for me. But if I had turned down your offer I really would be alone. Our pairing isn’t a replacement for a relationship. It makes being alone bearable. It makes me happy,” Morse said simply. “I wish you could see how much richer my life is, for having you in it. And not just the sex, perfunctory or otherwise,” he teased.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Thursday said gruffly. “I want you to be happy.”

I just wish you could see that you are worthy of love, Fred thought. And I hope with all my heart that one day you will find someone who can do for you what I can’t, and make you believe it.

888

They strolled home through the graveyard of St Michael’s, fog thickening on the rain damp grass. Morse had his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. Thursday slanted him a glance as he paused by a broken gravestone, one hand touching the top of the weathered old stone.

Morse looked away, his somber profile making him look older than his years somehow. An old soul, Fred’s mother used to say. That lad has an old soul.

“You,” Morse began, and then broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

“Speak your piece, lad. You know you can say anything to me.”

The younger man turned to face him squarely. “You’re going to pull away now, aren’t you,” Morse said, making it a statement rather than a question. “It’ll be for my own good, that’s what you’ll tell yourself.”

Thursday sighed but Morse held up a hand before he could speak. “It’s all right,” he said, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m used to it. It’s what I do, you see. Push too hard, want too much. Drive people away.”

“You’re not driving me away,” Thursday growled, aware of just how badly he’d cocked this up. 

“For my own good,” Morse repeated. “And I understand, I do,” he insisted as Thursday shook his head again. “You think I’ll be so busy looking to you that I’ll miss out on finding what you think I need.”

“And you think you need me,” Thursday said. Morse lifted his head and gazed at him through the gathering mist. 

“I do need you,” he said, his eyes clear. “But it doesn’t matter what I need, does it? It never does.”

“It matters to me,” Fred said forcefully. 

“Then don’t go,” Morse said unflinchingly. “Don’t pull away. Don’t take away this… tenderness between us.”

“It feels selfish,” Thursday said. “I’m trying to think about what’s best for you, you can see that, can’t you?”

“You’re best for me,” Morse said. “It never really was just about the job.”

“Reckon I know that,” Thursday admitted. “When you look at me I see your heart in your eyes, and…”

Morse tilted his head, curiosity driving away his sombre expression. “What?”

“I want to keep you all to myself,” Fred finally admitted. “And that’s not what a pairing is for. You haven’t driven me away,” he said as firmly as he could, needing Morse to understand this much at least. “You’ve become a part of me. It’s not you who wants too much, Morse, it’s me.”

He stepped forward, into Morse’s space, achingly aware that for the first time Morse wasn’t taking his own half step towards him. Carefully Thursday wrapped his arms around the younger man, drawing him into the circle of his embrace. “It’s not easy for a man to say, sometimes,” Thursday said. “It should be, but it’s not. The thought of losing you, well, I think it would break me. Finish me off.”

Morse’s hands slowly rose, and he grasped at Thursday’s coat blindly.

“But the thought of hurting you, damaging you, that would be much worse. When I’m holding you so tightly against me,” he whispered. “Am I keeping you from what you really need?”

“I need you.” Morse repeated, his hands tightening on Thursday’s jacket fiercely. “You promised to keep me. You promised,” he repeated. “It’s not fair to give me that and then take it away. You promised.”

“I meant it,” Thursday swore. “I will keep you, I want to keep you. I want it more than’s good for both of us, but it’s too late to worry about that now.” He shaped his hand around Morse’s head, pressing him gently into the curve of his shoulder, feeling the younger man’s breath warm against his neck. “You deserve more, god knows, but you’re stuck with me now.”

“I don’t know what I deserve,” Morse said. “And I’m not so sure you deserve me, but you started this. You’re the one stuck with me,” he said, a huff of strained laughter in his voice. 

Thursday closed his eyes and another face came into his mind. His first pairing, and now, he could admit it, the first great love of his life. He’d been a young man himself when he’d lost him, and in the midsts of a war, his girl waiting at home. He’d taken the chance when he was back in London on military business to snatch her up, marry her, lay the foundation for the rest of his life, but he allowed himself to wonder now, for the first time, if he’d have done that if his captain had still been alive. If a sniper’s bullet hadn’t blown that bright, shining light out of the world.

Thursday held the bright, shining light of his lad against him, and spoke from his heart. “I’m not going to pull away from you, Morse,” he swore. “I’m not going to deny us that tenderness. God forgive me, I’m too old and too selfish to leave you go before I have to.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Well I won’t be around forever,” Thursday began, but Morse pulled back and pressed his lips against Fred’s words, kissing him hard. One of those rare times as the kisser and not the kissed.

“Don’t,” he ordered, pulling back. “Not today.”

Thursday gazed down into wide, blue eyes, eyes that had taken on the grey of the mist in the deepening twilight. “All right, Morse,” he said.

888

“You know,” Morse said, as they strolled towards his home. “I might have walked away in the beginning. Even after the spectacular first time over your desk.”

Thursday frowned, taken aback. “You what?”

“Do you know why I didn’t? Why I stayed, and gave our pairing a chance, and became so content with my new life?”

Thursday shook his head, lost for words. Morse might have walked away? Even after that first time? Even when Thursday had been feeling so cocksure? He’d had no idea.

“When it was done, and you were being so kind to me, so gentle, do you remember? You kissed me.” Morse’s face lit up at the memory. “Just a little kiss, quite light. But in your eyes I could see all the things I’d been looking for. The potential for them anyway.”

“And that’s why I pushed you on your social life,” Thursday said. “That’s what worried me. Because I shouldn’t be all the things you’re looking for, Morse.”

“You shouldn’t have kissed me then.” Morse said simply. 

Thursday slanted him a glance, noting with relief that the strained lines he’d seen on Morse’s lean face back in the graveyard were gone. The young man looked relaxed again, breathing in the damp evening air with pleasure. The bells of Oxford started to ring, and Morse tilted his head and listened, a smile curving his lips.

Thursday kept pace with his lad, his heart, his Endeavour, knowing only one thing for sure, that he was completely out of his depth now. Had he really told Morse he was the one in charge? 

Chance would be a fine thing.


End file.
